Brian Thompson: Losing out to Murphy’s Mutt

That came from a little voice in the back seat. There was a “Woohoo!” quality to it. Isn’t this great!

Yeah, it’s great.

Lily is the dog. She’s a little over a year old, or so. Who can say for sure? She’s a pound dog. A bit aloof. We’ve had her less than a year, and that’s been enough time to figure out her quirks. Like throwing up in the car. A car drives by and she’s liable to let loose. It’s Pavlovian.

Which is why it was such a big deal. Which is why my daughter had to make it known.

“She hasn’t thrown up yet!”

We were headed to Palatka. The three of us. We were going to go hike around Ravines Gardens State Park while my wife was doing something for work. She had warned us. Take paper towels. Take cleaning spray and plastic bags. Take a HAZMAT suit and the number for an auto dealership. You may have to trade the car in for a new one.

“If that dog throws up on the seat again, it’s gonna’ be worth less than a mobile meth lab,” I think were her words.

The last time it happened, well, it was a good one.

I got the call while they were all coming to pick me up at work. I thought someone had died a tragic death, or fallen down a well, or the country was at war. The voice on the other line had that kind of desperate urgency. It was sprinkled with horror and pain. “Oh my God, Brian! It’s awful. I think we’re dying. You’ve got to help us. I don’t know what to do. I think we’re going to have to burn the car and collect the insurance. Do you know how to do that? Oh no, I think I’m losing consciousness ... OK, we love you ... ” and then the line went dead.

Do you know what it’s like standing in a parking lot hearing that? The things that run through your mind? The car pulled up, two people jumped out and start running away, noses plugged. The dog just sat there. The look on her face said, “You know, it could happen to anyone.”

But it happened to her. Again. We thought about driving through the car wash with the windows down.

For some reason, my daughter and I figured she would be OK on this little jaunt. We had tested her out on a run to the library. No problem.

And she did so well.

And she might have made it ... if not for that universal law that states: Anything that can go wrong with your dog will go wrong with your dog.

It’s called “Murphy’s Mutt.” It affects all dogs. Good dogs. Great dogs. Any kind of dog.

We were so close — just a couple hundred yards away from the park entrance. Home free. We had thumbed our nose at the universe and proven that silly law wrong. If ... we ... could ... just ... make ... it ... another ... 100 ... yards.

But you know we didn’t. Of course, we didn’t. I don’t have the heart to tell her, but my daughter jinxed it. Maybe if she hadn’t said anything. Or maybe if I had just run a few red lights.

Instead, from the back seat I heard funny sounds. Oh, those sounds. You know them when you hear them. Sounded like scratching on the seat. Then some hacking. And gurgling, followed by the grand crescendo.

“Amelie!” I cried to my daughter as I desperately tried to get a look in the rear view mirror. “What’s happening? Did she just ...”

Calm as can be — I’ll never forget this — she said: “Yep. She puked.”

Oh, it was all over. The shame. The lack of supplies. Being so close, and yet failing. We could never show our faces at home again. We might as well drive the car into the river. Leave it there and all walk home to St. Augustine, heads sunk low. We were a bunch of misfits!

We nearly burned out the automatic towel dispenser in the public restroom collecting cleaning supplies. It was bad, but could have been worse. Towels flew everywhere and we held our noses. People must have wondered what in the world we were doing.

If they had asked, I would have answered: “Losing out to Murphy’s Mutt.”